Looking Back We Get To See, Anonymous Guest

We were foster parents. A fostering family. We loved her for a year and a half. She was ours. Mine.

When she was taken that piece was ripped out of me with her to leave a gaping hole. For a long time I felt like that hole, that experience, was a waste. Why? Why did I put myself and my family through all of that grief? It was agonizing. Add a broken marriage to the equation and it was anguish.

Everything that was wrong was sucked out of that hole in my heart and brought out into the surface. You know… those things. The painful things that weren’t too much. I had gotten really good at hiding them away with a big smile plastered on my face.

But when that hole was torn…those things all escaped through and I could no longer hide them away.

It turns out they weren’t little after all. I was just managing them. They say hindsight is 20/20. I mean, that’s true, I think, but sometimes it has to REALLY be-hind us before our vision clears. The flow of pain was a long and slow process. One drop at a time.

So for me…it was all part of my journey. God’s journey in me. HE had to bring me to a place where I wasn’t HANDLING it anymore. It had to get so bad that I had to fall flat on my face unable to move. Unable to breath. Unable to live. I wish I could say that in the middle of all the brokenness I was totally dependent on God, but I was a mess. A hot mess as my sister would say.

I had to start over from scratch. New town. New Home. Find a job. New friends. I didn’t know DAILY how I would get through. I would freak out or stress for a bit and THEN I would breathe and tell God he had to do it. And he did. Every. Single. Day.

It’s been hours, days, months, years…step by step that I’ve watched God do it. Because I couldn’t. I prayed He would come back and take me. THAT sounded so much better.

So my life became about getting by until God took me home. Because my life ending sounded WAY easier than waiting on God.

As I’m typing and reading this I hesitate and almost laugh because it sounds so melodramatic. So CRAZY! I was crazy. But God is bigger than crazy. He’s bigger than the woman I trusted telling me my choices would cause my kids to be suicidal. He’s bigger than my son screaming at me and the guilt I felt for failing him. He’s bigger than all my feelings of loneliness and despair.

He’s bigger than ANYTHING.

In church a few weeks ago I heard a song that cleared my vision. It was the prescription for 20/20 vision that I needed. God had to bring me to my knees to a place where I knew I NEEDED him and where I felt his UNWAVERING love. And all the crap I had to experience to get there…He has REDEEMED in a way I cannot even explain.

…My marriage honors God and honors each other. I feel LOVED.

…I can pray for my husband’s previous stepson who is lost and in need of JESUS.

…I have 3 beautiful kids who love and trust me.

…I am able to relate to a broken hearted & depressed stepdaughter & her MANY friends who are not only from broken homes, but also from FOSTER CARE! WOW!

…I’ve shared my story with other suffering women. You’re not alone. You’re not the minority.

SO… it’s a disjointed mess, but its mine and I’m God’s so that makes it beautiful. He will bring you to Him whatever it takes and he will REDEEM the pieces all along the way.